by Julia London
Prudence blinked with surprise. How interesting. She straightened her back and looked around, wondering what the gentleman had seen to anger him so. But observing nothing out of the ordinary on the village green or on the high street, she stood up, and as casually and inconspicuously as she might, she moved closer, pretending to examine some rose blooms so that she might hear his complaint.
“As I said, sir, Wesleigh is just up the road there. A half-hour walk, no more.”
“But you don’t seem to understand my point, my good man,” the gentleman said in an accent that was quite flat. “Wesleigh is a house. Not a settlement. I understood I’d be delivered to an estate. An estate! A very large house with outbuildings and various people roaming about to do God knows what it is you do in England,” he exclaimed, his hands busily sketching the estate in the air.
The driver shrugged. “I drive where I’m paid to drive, and I ain’t paid to drive to Wesleigh. Ain’t a grand house there by no means.”
“This is preposterous!” the man bellowed. “I’ve paid good money to be delivered to the proper place!”
The driver ignored him.
The gentleman swept his hat off a head full of thick brown hair and threw it with great force to the ground. It scudded along and landed very close to Prudence. He looked about for his hat and, spotting Prudence at the edge of the green, he suddenly strode forward, the paper held out before him.
Prudence panicked. She looked about for a place to escape, but he guessed her intention. “No, no, stay right there, I beg you,” he said sternly. “I must have someone speak to that man and explain to him that I am to be delivered to Wesleigh!”
“Wesleigh?” Prudence asked. “Or Weslay?”
That drew the man up, midstride. He stared at her with eyes the rich color of golden topaz, which slowly began to narrow on her, as if he thought she meant to trick him. He hesitantly moved forward, the paper still held out before him. “If you would be so kind?” he asked through clenched teeth, practically shoving the paper at her.
Prudence took it between forefinger and thumb and gingerly extracted it from his grip. Someone had written—scrawled, really, in long bold strokes—“West Lee, Penfors.”
“Hmm,” she said, squinting at the scrawl. “I suppose you mean Viscount Penfors.” She peeked up at the stranger, who was staring darkly at her. She could feel the potency of his gaze trickling into her veins. “Lord Penfors resides at Howston Hall, just outside of Weslay.”
“Yes, exactly as I wrote,” he said, pointing to the paper.
“But this says ‘West Lee.’”
“Just as you said.”
“No, sir, I said ‘Weslay.’ I’ve never heard of West Lee,” she said, trying to enunciate the subtle difference in the sound of the names. “And unfortunately, it appears you’ve mistakenly arrived in Wesleigh.”
The stranger’s face darkened, and Prudence had an image of him exploding, little bits of him raining down on the street. “I beg your pardon, miss, but you are not making any sense,” he said tightly. He reached for the edge of the paper with his forefinger and thumb as she’d done and yanked it free. “You have said West Lee three times now, and I don’t know if you mean to tease me or if there is something else at work here.”
“I am not teasing you,” she objected, horrified by the suggestion.
“Then it must be something else!”
“Something else?” What could he possibly mean? Prudence couldn’t help but smile. “I assure you, I am not privy to any scheme or conspiracy to keep you from Weslay, sir.”
His frown deepened. “I am happy to amuse you, miss. But if you would kindly point me in the direction of at least one of these West Lees, and preferably the one where I may find this Penfors fellow, I would be most grateful.”
“Oh.” She winced lightly.
“Oh?” he repeated, leaning forward. “What does ‘oh’ mean? Why are you looking at me as if you’ve lost my dog?”
“You’ve gone the wrong direction.”
“So I gathered,” he drawled.
“Wesleigh is just down the road here, a small village with perhaps five cottages. Weslay is north.” She pointed in the direction the stage had just come.
He looked in the direction she pointed. His face began to mottle. “How far?” he managed, his voice dangerously low.
“I can’t be entirely certain, but I’d say...two days?”
The gentleman stranger clenched his jaw. He was big and powerful, and Prudence imagined his fury shaking the ground beneath his feet. “But that is indeed where you will find this Penfors fellow,” she hastened to add, and once again tried not to smile. It was absurd to refer to a viscount as a fellow!
“North?” he bellowed, throwing his arms wide.
Prudence took one cautious step backward and nodded.
The man put his hands on his waist, staring at her. And then he turned slowly from her. She thought he meant to walk away, but he kept turning, until he’d gone full circle, and when he faced her again, his jaw was clenched even more tightly. “If I may,” he asked, his voice strained, “have you a suggestion for how I might reach this West Lee that is two days away?”
“It’s not West—” She shook her head. “You might take the northbound stagecoach. It comes through Ashton Down twice a day. The first one should be along at any moment.”
“I see,” he said, but it was quite apparent he didn’t see at all.
“You might also buy passage on the Royal Post coach, but it’s a bit more costly than the passenger stages. And it comes through only once a day.”
He eyed her distrustfully. “Two days either way?”
She nodded. She smiled sympathetically. She would not like to be sausaged into a stagecoach for two days. “I fear it is so.”
He shoved his fingers roughly through his dark brown hair and muttered something under his breath that she couldn’t quite make out but sounded as if she ought not to hear.
“Where might I purchase passage?” he asked briskly.
She looked around him—that is, she leaned to her right to see around his broad chest—to the stagecoach inn. “I’ll show you if you like.”
“That,” he said firmly, “would be most helpful.” He bent down, scooped up his hat, dusted it off by knocking it against his knee, then put it back on his head. His gaze traversed the length of her before he stepped back and swept his arm before him, indicating she should lead him.
Prudence walked across the street, pausing as the gentleman instructed the coachman to leave his trunk and bag on the sidewalk with the other luggage pieces to be loaded on the northbound coach. He stared wistfully at the coach as it pulled away, headed south, before turning back to Prudence and following her into the inn’s courtyard. She walked through a pair of doors that went past the public room and into a small office. It was close, and she had to dip her head to step inside. The ceiling was uncomfortably low, and the smell of horse manure permeated the air, as the office was situated between the stables and the public rooms.
The gentleman passenger was well over six feet and had to stoop to enter. Once inside, his head brushed the rafters. He batted at a cobweb and grunted his displeasure.
“Aye, sir?” said a clerk, appearing behind the low counter.
The gentleman stepped forward. “I should like to buy passage to West Lee,” he said.
“Weslay,” Prudence murmured.
The gentleman sighed loudly. “What she said.”
“Three quid,” the clerk said.
The gentleman removed his purse from his pocket and opened it. He fussed through the coins there, examining each one as he withdrew them. Prudence stepped forward, leaned around him, and pointed at three of the coins.
“Ah,” he said, and handed them to the clerk, who in turn handed the gentleman a
ticket.
“The driver requires a crown, and the guard a half,” the clerk said.
“What?” the gentleman said. “But I just gave you three pounds.”
The clerk tucked the coins into a pocket on his apron. “That’s for the passage. The driver and the guard, they get their pay from the passengers.”
“Seems like a dodge.”
The clerk shrugged. “If you want passage to Weslay—”
“All right, all right,” the gentleman said. He peered at his ticket and sighed again. He gestured for Prudence to go out ahead of him, then fit himself through the door into the inn’s main hall and followed her into the courtyard.
They paused there. He smiled for the first time since Prudence had seen him, and she felt a little twinkle of desire when he did. He looked remarkably less perturbed, and in all honestly, he looked astoundingly pleasing to the eye when he smiled. It was a rugged, well-earned smiled. There was nothing thin about it. It was an honest, glowing sort of smile—
“I am grateful for your assistance, Miss...?”
“Cabot,” she said. “Miss Prudence Cabot.”
“Miss Cabot,” he said, and bowed his head slightly. “Mr. Roan Matheson,” he added, and stuck his hand out.
Prudence glanced uncertainly at his hand.
So did he. “What is it? Is my glove soiled? So it is. I beg your pardon, but I’ve come a very long way without benefit of anyone to do the washing.”
“No, it’s not that,” she said with a shake of her head, although her thoughts were spinning with the how and why and from where he’d come such a long way.
“Oh. I see.” He removed his glove and extended his hand once more. She noticed how big it was, how strong. How long and thick his fingers were and the slight nicks on his knuckles. A hand that was not afraid of work. “My hand is clean,” he said impatiently.
“Pardon? Oh! No, it’s just that it’s rather unusual.”
“My hand?” he asked curiously, holding it up to have a look.
“No, no.” She was being rude. She looked up at his startling topaz eyes. And at his hair, too, dark brown with streaks of lighter brown, and longer than the current fashion, which he had carelessly brushed back behind his ears. It was charmingly foreign. He was charmingly foreign and...virile. Yes, that was it. He looked as if he could move mountains about for his amusement if he liked. Her pulse, Prudence realized, was doing a tiny bit of fluttering. “It’s unusual that you are offering your hand to be—” she paused uncertainly “—shaken?”
“Of course I offered it to be shaken,” he said, as if it were ridiculous she would ask. “Why else would one offer a hand, Miss Cabot? To shake. To acknowledge a kindness or a greeting—”
She abruptly put her hand in his, noting how small it seemed in his palm.
He cocked his head. “Are you afraid of me?”
“What? No!” she said, flustered. Maybe she was a tiny bit afraid of him. Or rather, the little shocks of light that seemed to flash through her when he looked at her like that. She curled her fingers around his. He curled tighter. “Oh,” she said.
“Too firm?” he asked.
“No, not at all,” she said quickly. She liked the feel of his grip on her hand and had the fleeting thought of his grip somewhere else on her altogether. “I beg your pardon, but I am unaccustomed to this. Here, men offer their hands to other men. Not to ladies.”
“Oh.” He hesitantly withdrew his hand. But he looked at her with confusion. “Then...what am I to do when I meet a woman?”
“You bow,” she said, demonstrating for him. “And a lady curtsies.” She curtsied, as well.
He groaned as he pulled his glove back on. “May I be brutally honest, Miss Cabot?”
“Please,” she said.
“I have come to England from America on a matter of some urgency—I must fetch my sister who is enjoying the fine hospitality and see her home. But I find this country confounding. I sincerely—” He suddenly turned his head, distracted by the sound of a coach rumbling into town. It was the northbound stage, and it pulled to a halt on the street just outside the courtyard. Two men sitting atop the coach jumped down; two young men climbed down from the outboard. Another man was waiting on the sidewalk to catch the bags that one of the coachmen began to toss to him.
The coach looked rather full, and Prudence felt a moment of pity for Mr. Matheson. She couldn’t possibly imagine how he would maneuver his large body into that crowded interior.
“Well, then, there we are,” he said, and began to stride toward the coach. He paused after a few steps and glanced over his shoulder at Prudence. “Aren’t you coming?”
Prudence was momentarily startled. She suddenly realized he believed she was waiting for the coach, too. She opened her mouth to correct him, to inform him she’d be traveling by private coach, but before the words could fall from her tongue, something warm and shivery sluiced through her. Something silky and dark and dangerous and exciting and compelling...so very compelling.
She wouldn’t.
But why wouldn’t she? She thought of riding in a coach with the Linfords, and the talk of weather. She thought of riding on a stagecoach—something she had never done—and riding with Mr. Matheson. There was something about that idea that thrilled her in a way nothing had in a very long time. He was so masculine, and her pulse fluttered at the idea of passing a few hours with him. “Ah...” She glanced back at the inn, debating. She’d be mad to do such a thing, to put herself on that stagecoach with him! But wasn’t this far more interesting than traveling with the Linfords? She had money, she had her things. She knew how to reach Cassandra Bulworth. What was stopping her? Propriety, for heaven’s sake? The same propriety that had been her constant companion all these years and had doomed her to spinsterhood?
She glanced again at Mr. Matheson. Oh yes, he was very appealing in a wild, American sort of way. She’d never met an actual American, either, but she imagined them all precisely like this, always rebelling, strong enough to forge ahead without regard for society’s rules. This man was so different, so fresh, so incurably handsome and so blessedly lost! She might even convince herself she was doing him a proper kindness by seeing him on his way.
Mr. Matheson misunderstood her look, however, because he flushed a bit and said, “I beg your pardon. I didn’t mean to rush you.”
Prudence smiled broadly—he thought she wanted the privy.
Her smile seemed to fluster him more. He cleared his throat and looked to the coach. “I’ll...I’ll see you on the coach.”
“Yes,” she said, with far more confidence than she had a right to. “Yes, you will!”
He looked at her strangely, but then gave her a curt nod and began striding for the coach, pausing to dip down and pick up one of the bags with one hand, then toss it up to a boy who was lashing the luggage on the boot.
There was no time to debate it; Prudence whirled about and hurried back to the office, her heart pounding with excitement and fear. A little bell tingled as she walked in.
The clerk turned round and squinted at her. “Miss?”
“A ticket to Himple, please,” she said, and opened her reticule.
“To Himple?” he repeated dubiously, and peered curiously at her.
“Please. And if you have some paper? I must dash off a note.”
“Two quid,” he said, and rummaged around until he found a bit of vellum she might use.
He handed her a pencil, and Prudence dashed off a hasty note to Dr. Linford that she would ask the coach boys to deliver to him. She jotted down the usual salutations, her wishes that the Linfords were well and his mother on the mend. And then she wrote an explanation for her change of plans.
I beg your pardon for any inconvenience, but as it happens, I have taken a seat in a friend’s coach. She is likewise bound fo
r Himple and it was no trouble for her to include me in her party. Do please forgive the short notice, but the opportunity has only just come about. Thank you kindly for your offer to see me safely to my friends’, but I assure you I am in good hands.
She shivered at the sudden image of the gentleman’s hands.
My best wishes for your journey and your mother’s health. P.C.
She folded the note, smiled at the scowling clerk, and picked up her ticket. “Thank you,” she said, and fairly skipped out of the office.
Her heart was racing—she couldn’t believe she was doing something so daring and bold! So fraught with risk! So very unlike her! But for the first time in months, perhaps even years, Prudence felt as if something astonishing was about to happen to her. Good or bad, it didn’t matter—the only thing that mattered was that something different this way came, and she was giddy with excitement.
CHAPTER TWO
THE INTERIOR OF the coach was suited for four people, but as the extra seating on top of the coach was filled, Roan had to fit himself inside, wedging into the corner of an impossibly hard bench, his knees knocking against the bonier ones of the old man who sat across from him and unabashedly studied him. Next to the old gent was a boy who looked thirteen or fourteen years old. He sat with a hat pulled so far down his head that Roan couldn’t see anything but his long, angular nose and his small chin. He held a small battered valise on his lap, his arms wrapped securely around it.
Beside him was one of two robust women, whose lace caps looked too small for their heads, and whose thick tight curls hung like mistletoe over their ears. Roan didn’t think they were twins, exactly, but he supposed they were sisters. They wore identical gray muslin gowns and so much frilly lace across their expansive bosoms that at first glance, Roan thought they were wearing doilies.
However, the most notable feature of the two women was their astounding capacity to talk. They sat across from each other and they hadn’t as much as taken a breath—talking over and under and around each other—since he’d fitted himself inside the coach. Moreover, they spoke so quickly, with an accent so thick, that Roan couldn’t begin to make out what they were saying.
